Rencontre entre un adolescent atteint de mucoviscidose et le ministre de la Santé pour parler de la pénurie de médicaments.

Maxime Crocquevieille and his parents are confident and reassured. The family living in Moyon Villages (Manche) met, in the late morning of this Monday, April 24, 2023 in Paris, the Minister of Health, François Braun. “We were very well received by him and his entire team at the ministry. We thank them for that. The minister is very approachable, very attentive. We are pleased to have been heard in this way,” smiles Amélie Lefranc, Maxime’s mother.

This exchange followed a letter that the 15-year-old had sent to François Braun in February. Since birth, Maxime has suffered from cystic fibrosis, a rare genetic disease that obstructs the digestive and respiratory tracts. Feeling abandoned by medicine, the young Manchois wanted to understand “why he can’t be cured”.

Medicine shortages

While his treatment requires him to take ten medications a day, some of them are particularly difficult to find in pharmacies due to a shortage affecting all of France.

For several months, Amélie Lefranc and her partner Anthony Crocquevieille have had to travel miles and call numerous pharmacies to find vital growth hormones, a steroid anti-inflammatory, or sodium chloride. “I can die from one day to the next because I can’t have the necessary medication. It’s a great stress,” Maxime told us at the beginning of April.

The “spokesman” for the sick

His appeal for help had been echoed by many national media outlets. So much so that François Braun had called on his team to meet with the Moyon family, a meeting organised for this Monday.

We didn’t ask to be received! As a result, we felt valued. For an hour, we spoke on behalf of all patients in the same situation as us. We try to be their spokesman.

Despite the situation remaining complicated, while Amélie Lefranc had to travel another forty-five kilometers at the beginning of April to obtain one of the medications, she trusts the minister to improve things over time. “He is aware that the situation is fragile, but he is already doing what is necessary to prevent it from getting worse. Even if it is not possible to solve this problem that has been going on for years with a snap of the fingers, he works on it daily. His goal is for this problem to disappear.”

The minister has also pledged that his team will contact the pharmacy in the town where Maxime lives. “So that she can make a reserve of his medications as soon as possible.” Amélie Lefranc, who will not hesitate to re-engage the minister if necessary, does not lose hope. Convinced that François Braun will do “a nice job.”

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